


Further Adventures in a Strange Place

by Unicornfoal



Series: Legacy of the Cursed Lands [2]
Category: TOME: Terrain of Magical Expertise
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-17
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-02-25 18:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 19,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2632043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Unicornfoal/pseuds/Unicornfoal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Back-stories, future stories, and forgotten scenes set before, after, and during "Friends In A Strange Place".</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. BACK: First Encounter, Part 1

**BACKSTORY  
**

**FOUR HUNDRED YEARS AGO**

**THE ANCIENT CURSED LANDS**

 

"Some history-making trip this is turning out to be..."

"Stop grumbling, Trickin. You're only making it worse."

"You're _both_ 'making it worse' with your incessant demands we turn around! _And stop crying, Precious!_ "

"I j-just want everyone to stop fighti-i-ing!"

The blonde human rolled her eyes and waved to her small group. "Just keep moving! We need to keep a steady pace, or we'll miss our arrival on the other side!"

Behind her, her three associates matched her pace. One of them, a dog-like humanoid shifter by the name of Dalmate, shifted his backpack with a grunt. "If we can just get to the halfway point, Lorekai," he explained, "then we can use whatever magic is affecting us to our advantage on our way out."

Next to Dalmate, an orange slime with yellow eyes sighed. "I had no idea it would be such a chore to fight it off like this every hour of every day..."

The last of their group, a wengal-batwing by the name of Precious, sniffed and nodded. "I agree with Trickin," she quietly added, her malformed, feathered wings fluttering on her back. "This _curse_ is a thousand times worse than-!"

" _Quiet!_ " Lorekai ordered, resisting the urge to pull her gun out of her pocket as she continued her march. "I am _Lorekai_ , the greatest explorer in the world! I climbed the greatest mountains of Dracomire! I sailed from Wengaland to Jamtack, the _long way round_! I scaled the cliffs of the Duckskull Isles!" She stomped defiantly on her next step. "I will _not_ be cowed by a simple _spell_!"

"You _would_ call it that," Trickin grumbled. "You're _human_."

Lorekai shot a glare behind her. "And I hired you because you claimed to be able to _resist_ this magic. Tell me why I'm doing a better job of it than you?"

The slime didn't have an answer and simply looked away.

Precious sniffed, wiping at her face with one arm. "You don't have to be so mean about it," the sixteen-year-old whispered.

"I do, actually," Lorekai answered, staring hard ahead of her so she wouldn't lose her nerve and comfort her adopted daughter. "The three of you are likely to run off any second; You need a firm hand or this mission is _lost_." She frowned to herself and mentally added _'Not to mention, keeping an eye on them like this is keeping_ me _sane...'_

Although she couldn't see it, Dalmate nodded in agreement, ears flopping against the sides of his head. "I think we all underestimated what the Curse is capable of. Now we're here, it's little wonder a crossing has never been successfully pulled off before." He grinned, showing off the sharp teeth all around his spotted snout. "I for one appreciate your sternness with us, ma'am! I credit it with keeping me from making a run for it only twice so far!"

" _I'm_ the one who caught you," Trickin pointed out bitterly.

"And I caught  _you_ in return!" Dalmate replied. "Need I remind you it is extremely difficult to catch a  _puddle_?"

Precious smiled through her tear-stained cheeks. "And you've run off four times now, Trickin!"

Trickin crossed his arms and looked away.

"Keep your spirits up. We're already the furthest in anyone's ever gotten," Lorekai said, glancing up at the sun above them. "Or at least we've been here longer than anyone before us has..."

 

 

"And what would you bring to this expedition that is unique to you?" Lorekai asked, sat at her desk and barely glancing at her current interviewee as she took notes.

The shifter sat across from her grinned. "Well, my grandfather came to Allamar from Tiziyu."

Precious, sat next to Lorekai, gasped in excitement, her invisible wings almost giving themselves away as they twitched in anticipation. "From the  _Kiziti Plains!?_ "

Lorekai looked up, eyebrow raised.

"I see you've heard of it," Dalmate said with a cocky smirk.

"We've sailed past it twice in our circumnavigation of the world," Lorekai remarked with a frown. "It would have been foolish of us not to take advantage of its ports. Is this your way of telling us you retain the Kiziti ability?"

Dalmate nodded, then moved to pull his legs up and shifted. A moment later, a spotted dog, half Precious' size, was seated in the chair, tongue panting in a wide smile. "Meet Tikana!" he said, long tail wagging against the back of the chair. "I'm faster in this form, and I'd be able to track down and catch anything you ask me to! Even maybe help keep us on the right path!"

"Cool!" Precious said with a smile, and she turned to her mother. "That'd be helpful, right?"

"Hmm." Lorekai returned to her notes without a word. "We'll be in touch," she told Tikana.

 

* * *

 

"This place isn't a typical desert," the slime in human-form explained as they pored over a map. "It is literally ancient soil that was effectively frozen in time. No winds blow, nothing grows, no animal or person can stand to be there for too long."

Dalmate rolled his eyes. "Who  _doesn't_ know that last part?"

"What's your plan, Mister Trickin?" Precious asked, chewing on her lip.

The slime chuckled uncomfortably, showing his orange-tinted teeth. "Please, just 'Trickin' is fine," he insisted. "What I'm saying is, the soil quality at the edges will likely match anything we pass over, and all studies seem to say the area is totally flat."

"So no mountain climbing, is what you're saying," Lorekai specified, tapping her chin in thought.

Trickin nodded. "We need to carry as little as possible, move as fast as possible. I may be the most able to resist it of everyone I know, but if history has taught us anything about the Cursed Lands, it's that no-one can ignore the Curse for long."

Lorekai smiled, sharing a knowing look with Precious. " _We_ will. I make it a point to never fail."

"Plus you two don't get paid if we do," Precious added with a wink.

Dalmate raised an eyebrow. "That's reassuring."

"No-one can be allowed to do anything on their own," Trickin continued. "The ancient magic is  _very good_ at convincing you to run home as fast as you can, and we can't allow ourselves that kind of opportunity or the mission is lost."

"That's why we have a team of four," Lorekai added to Dalmate and Precious. "We take watch shifts overnight in pairs, and if someone breaks, the other three can stop them."

"In that case, I hope we're all optimistic about this," Dalmate replied with a wry smile. "We're gonna need it."

 

* * *

 

The cheers of the crowds who had gathered to see them off had long since faded away into the distance, leaving only a crushing silence behind. The only sounds were the methodical thuds of their feet against the brown dirt and the occasional shifting of weight from the bags on their backs. The confidence they'd all boasted of before leaving the safe grass of Allamar was hard to keep up, but how much of that was the thought of the long journey ahead and how much was the nagging feeling to leave growing at the backs of their minds they couldn't say.

Out of boredom (and to distract himself from dwelling on the growing desire to go home), Dalmate turned to Trickin beside him to strike up a conversation, only to gasp in surprise instead. The slime's human shape seemed to have  _melted_ , losing the detail of his fingers, 'skintight' clothes, and even ears and mouth. "Trickin, are you alright!?" the shifter asked in concern.

Trickin was startled out of his thoughts by the question and looked up in confusion for a moment. "Huh? Oh, yeah, this." He shrugged. "It's harder to look human than it looks, and it's hard to concentrate on how I look when we've got the Curse to worry about. You'll understand the further in we go."

Dalmate opened his mouth to claim he wouldn't, but hurriedly changed his mind.

Lorekai turned and walked backwards for several moments, staring critically off into the distance, back the way they'd come. After a few seconds, she smiled and turned around again. "We're out of sight now, Precious."

"Oh, good!" Precious exclaimed, and she waved a hand over her shoulder. The illusion spell over her wings and tail faded away, and this time both Dalmate and Trickin gasped in surprise.

"Wow, I thought you were human!" Dalmate cried, smiling at the embarrassed teen. "Nice wings, miss!"

Trickin frowned at the strange build of her wings and bent tail, both covered in dark blue feathers, but dismissed them as impolite to address. "I thought you were Lorekai's daughter? How can you be a wengal?"

Precious shied away from the question, blushing nervously and biting her lip. Lorekai sighed. "I adopted Precious after she was rescued from the Conglomerate as a baby. This was back when their most recent war with Wengaland started, and so Precious in particular wouldn't be welcome in either country."

"My father was a wengal," Precious whispered, staring at the ground in front of her. "My birth mother was a batwing."

Dalmate's eyes widened in sudden understanding. "Oh. A cross. No wonder."

Trickin winced. "Sorry for my rudeness, miss."

"It's fine," Precious insisted, still staring at the ground. "Thank you."


	2. FORG: Kirb's Goodbye

**FORGOTTEN SCENE  
**

**FOREST, OUTSIDE MECHCITY**

 

Between the trees Kizuna strode, a backpack of supplies on her back and the hand of one half of her best friend, Kirbopher, in hers. Behind them followed the other half of her best friend, Zetto. Both of him also carried backpacks of supplies, and had silently followed Kizuna's lead since she found them back at the now-destroyed base they had once called home. Kirb may have stopped sobbing, but the fact he had refused to leave Kizuna's side since she found him worried her, and she found herself occasionally squeezing his hand encouragingly. Zetto, on the other hand, worried her for purely the opposite reasons; His total lack of reaction to anything had convinced her at first to let him wander off and do his own thing as she hurried them out of the base, but now she had grown concerned that he needed to be watched closely until she knew exactly what had happened to him. After all, it was impossible to _read_ Zetto, and she had no idea what kind of effects the virus had left on him...  _either_ of him.

Kirb sniffed, and rubbed at his face with a sleeve, the most noise any of them had made since entering the trees. His clothes had been damaged badly in the attack, but Kizuna was confident one of their group could crudely sew them back up once she was satisfied they were far enough away from the base. Flash's katana hung at Kirb's belt, looking almost more at home there than it ever had with Flashblade. Kizuna regretted possibly upsetting Kirb further by rushing them out of the base as she had, but, aside from the possibility of the virus returning, she was terrified that, had they stayed, the police could have shown up at any second and arrested the three of them as terrorists. Not to mention, she didn't think she could stomach staying in a building filled with the bodies of her friends and colleagues, and it wouldn't have helped Kirb either. Zetto though... she suspected  _he_ would have been fine with it. His near-constant body armour had protected him from any clothing damage, and it seemed the virus itself had protected them both from physical injury (barring the split, of course).

Kizuna turned her gaze up at the setting sun.  _'Now seems as good a time as any to stop,'_ she decided, and looked around for an open space in the trees for the two- no,  _three_ of them to set up camp.

Beside her, Kirb looked up curiously. "What is it?" he asked, quiet and sounding slightly hoarse.

Blinking in surprise, Kizuna glanced down at him. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"You slowed down," Kirb pointed out, "and you're looking around for something. What is it?"

Kizuna smiled, holding back a small laugh. "I'm thinking it's time we stop for the night. I'd prefer to find an open space before we lose the light."

"How about over here?" called her friend's voice from behind them, and Kizuna almost jumped before she remembered Zetto and turned to face him. He had stopped walking and was pointing off to one side and slightly behind them, where Kizuna could just see a fairly open space that would fit the three of them easily.

"Huh," Kizuna muttered. "That's perfect, actually."

 

* * *

 

Zetto wordlessly helped Kizuna set up a fire and lay out their sleeping bags; Although Kizuna and Kirb had existing ones they'd always used on scouting missions, Zetto (being too big for Kirb's) had instead grabbed one of the ratty-looking spares from the storage room. Kirb had stood by and watched them nervously, seeming unsure of what to do himself, only finally moving when Zetto pointed to the red-and-blue sleeping bag and told him outright, "Sit on that one, it's yours." He'd looked relieved to be given instruction, but Kizuna noticed he was still watching both her and Zetto worriedly, hugging his knees as he awkwardly adjusted the new sword on his belt to a comfortable position.

Dinner also passed with very little said between the group, Zetto and Kizuna preparing the food while Kirb watched, although his constant nervousness seemed to be finally giving way to boredom. As they finished eating, Zetto took charge of clean-up, and Kizuna finally felt safe enough to begin a conversation she'd wanted to start since discovering her friend's predicament back at the base: "So, do either of you want to tell me what happened?"

Zetto and Kirb glanced at each other before returning their gazes to Kizuna. "It would be best if I explained," Zetto suggested, still wiping plates clean. "I've been thinking on it since we left the base, and I believe I've worked out exactly what  _did_ happen... specifically, what's wrong with us."

Kirb winced, staring at the ground and looking sad again.

"Alright," Kizuna replied, frowning in thought. "I suppose that's the only important thing, after the virus attacking and... well." She shook her head, looking up at Zetto. "Go on."

"For some unknown reason," Zetto began, "the virus didn't split me into two  _perfectly_ , as in, giving us identical minds and functionality." Having finished cleaning their cutlery and plastic crockery, he began loading them back into their individual towel-like bags, where they could dry as they awaited further use the next morning. "Instead, it seems to have split my mind in two along with my body, so individually we aren't as capable as we were when we were whole."

Kizuna frowned in thought. "That's makes sense," she agreed, looking over the two of them and noticing Kirb seemed to be listening closely. "So the line between you... I'd imagine that involves Kirb here having the emotional side."

Zetto nodded.

Kirb raised an eyebrow at his friend. "Is that an insult?"

Ignoring Kirb, Zetto continued, "I seem to have all the logical abilities, but I admit it's impossible for me to understand the two of you without the aid of words. I think those abilities have also gone to Kirb."

"So I get all the useless stuff?" Kirb grumbled, crossing his arms. "What a  _joke_."

"Calm down," Kizuna told the shorter shifter. "You can communicate in a way Zetto can't, and that's far from useless."

Kirb groaned, dramatically throwing his hands into the air. "But I can't  _think!_ I try, and there's some...  _fog_ or something in my head and I can't push through it!" He grabbed his head and dropped it to his knees with another loud groan. "Admit it, I'm useless now..."

Kizuna immediately got up and sat next to Kirb, hugging him with one arm. "There's nothing to admit," she calmly replied. "Just give yourself some time to recover from today, and I'm sure you'll see that for yourself."

Kirb just mumbled something inaudible into his knees as a reply.

"There's more," Zetto continued, attracting Kizuna's attention again as he finished his job and leaned back onto his sleeping bag. "It seems Kirb and I can improvise a temporary solution that reconnects our minds."

"Really?" Kizuna asked in surprise.

Kirb looked up in disbelief. "What, you mean  _that_ thing!? The thing where we touch,  _that's_ what that is!?"

Zetto nodded, and turned to Kizuna to explain, "When Kirb and I share skin contact, we also seem to share memories. I suspect we also can function as one mind again at the same time, but as we have so far only done so in durations of less than a second, I can't be sure."

Leaning towards Kizuna, Kirb whispered, "Am I usually this wordy?"

"When you want to be," Kizuna whispered back with a smirk.

"We could confirm now, if you like," Zetto offered, holding up a hand towards Kirb, but the shorter shifter shrunk back with a grimace of disgust.

"No way!" Kirb objected. "Doing that is  _weird_ , I don't wanna do that again!"

Without any kind of visible reaction (which Kizuna was starting to get used to, oddly enough), Zetto lowered his hand again. "Alright."

Kirb blinked in surprise. "Wait, what? Are you implying I'm a coward, backing down so easily?"

Kizuna rolled her eyes, removing her arm from Kirb's shoulders as he shook an angry fist in Zetto's direction.

"Of course not," Zetto replied. "We just established I'm incapable of 'implying' anything."

"Well, I'll show  _you!_ " Kirb cried, ignoring Zetto as he jumped to his feet and leapt towards his other self, snatching up Zetto's hand from where it was resting on his lap. Almost immediately, he seemed to jump back in surprise, but it wasn't enough to break their grip on each other.

Zetto, surprisingly, looked as shocked as Kirb did, frowning in thought for a few moments before looking past Kirb to Kizuna. "I was right," he said with a shrug.

Kirb rolled his eyes. "Whoopee. Mister I-Got-All-The-Good-Parts is right."

"You do realise you're mocking yourself, right?" Zetto asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Only because doing  _this_ seems to be the only way I can actually think clearly right now!" Kirb shot back, only to then deliberately break skin contact and stalk back to his sleeping bag, where Kizuna was still sat watching them. "I'm going to bed."

Kizuna got out of Kirb's way, watching with some sadness how Zetto's face almost instantly defaulted to blank and emotionless once Kirb left. "That's probably a good idea," she said out loud. "Will you take first shift, Zetto?"

The blue-haired shifter nodded. "Of course."

 

* * *

 

When Kizuna woke up hours later, she was surprised to see the rising sun, having expected to be woken during the night. Turning over in her sleeping bag, she quickly noticed Kirb was sat next to the sleeping Zetto, holding his other self's hand as he looked out across the trees, only to jump and drop any contact with Zetto when he noticed Kizuna. "You're awake!" he cried.

Kizuna nodded as she sat up, reaching for her backpack. "Zetto picked you for second shift?" she asked.

"Yeah," Kirb replied. "We thought you should get your rest tonight."

"That's kind of you," Kizuna said, climbing out of her bed to approach the long-dead fire, "but I was perfectly happy to take second shift myself." She sighed as she looked up at Kirb. "Honestly, I thought  _you_ deserved a full night's sleep more than me."

Kirb rubbed an arm sadly, and got up to move over to his sleeping bag. "I needed the time to think," he insisted as he sat down, avoiding Kizuna's gaze. "I... don't think I'll be staying with you guys."

Kizuna blinked in surprise, looking up from her re-lighting of the fire. "What do you mean?"

"Exactly what I said," Kirb replied, meeting her eyes sadly. "I'm going to leave."

"But... you can't!" Kizuna objected, eyes wide. "We _need_ you!"

Kirb shook his head. "No, you don't."

"Yes, we do!"

"No," Kirb insisted, "you _don't_." He picked up his abandoned katana, lying next to his sleeping bag, and tossed it in Zetto's direction. "Zetto can learn to fight with that as good as I can. You'll move faster as a pair, too."

Kizuna pleaded, "Kirb-!"

"I've thought this out," Kirb interrupted. "I'll leave Tome so the virus won't go after me. I'll... hitch-hike back to Zikiyu or something, but I... I can't stay with you." He sighed and stared into his lap. "I just can't."

A thousand thoughts were running through Kizuna's head.  _'He can't be serious!' 'But I can't lose him like we lost everyone else!' 'Don't you dare leave me alone with Zetto!' 'Poor Kirb is hurting so much more than me...'_ After a few moments reviewing her options, she sighed in defeat, and got up to again sit next to him, pulling her friend into a tight hug. "You do realise I'll miss you a lot," she struggled to say through the tears that threatened at the corners of her eyes.

Kirb nodded in reply, clutching Kizuna as he returned her hug, eyes closed. "I'll miss you, too. But at least I'll know a part of me is still with you, huh?"

Kizuna laughed, still holding Kirb close.

The pair heard a thud next to them and jumped apart from each other to see Zetto sitting up in his sleeping bag, Flash's katana having been tossed back towards them. "I'll fight better without a dead weight on my belt," Zetto said. "I can't take advantage of its strengths without your speed. We're all better off with it going with you."

Kirb stared sadly at the katana, while Kizuna frowned at Zetto. "You aren't going to tell him to stay?" she asked.

Zetto shook his head. "His reasoning is sound." He climbed out of his bed and stood beside it, looking at Kizuna. "Although perhaps he should also take one of Flash's bankcards, if you think it's appropriate."

"We have those!?" Kizuna asked in surprise, standing up. "I can't believe I forgot about them!"

"I made sure we had them," Zetto explained, leaning down to his bag and reaching into an outer pocket. After a few seconds of searching, he pulled out two identical green pieces of plastic, and offered them to Kizuna. "As our leader, perhaps you should be the one to safeguard them."

Kizuna was halfway to taking the cards when Zetto's words registered. "Leader?"

"Given our situation," Zetto continued, "both of my selves are incapable of leading right now. That leaves only you."

There was a moment of still silence before Kizuna slowly reached out and took the cards from Zetto. "I see," she said, looking over the cards for a few moments before turning to face Kirb. Since she'd last looked, he had tied Flash's katana to his belt and was now standing behind her, watching her expectantly. She separated the plastic cards in her hand and held one out to him. "Be careful."

Kirb nodded, solemnly taking the offered card and sticking it in a pocket. After a moment's pause, he jumped forward and hugged Kizuna tightly around the waist. She clung back, fighting back the tears pricking at her eyes in an effort to be strong for Kirb's sake.

"This isn't goodbye," Kizuna told Kirb. "Not for good."

Kirb only nodded.


	3. FUTU: Missed You

**FUTURE STORY**

 

Kirb sat at his desk in his bedroom, in the flat he shared with Kizuna in the centre of Mechcity. Since Alpha and Flamey had won that tournament and got themselves signed up as actual, proper,  _real_ professional brawlers (he still couldn't believe it himself), and then turned around and asked him to be their coach... well, life had suddenly become a lot busier for the shifter. Right now, he was reading up on practising techniques. Most of it was stuff he already knew from the passion he'd had for brawling since he was a child, but he wanted to be sure he had even the smallest things down-pat for the planned training session with his 'team' the next day.

He heard the door behind him, left ajar, creak softly as it opened a little wider, and turned to see a small red cat padding along the carpet towards him. She looked up with golden eyes, tail swishing back and forth.

"What is it, Nina?" Kirb asked, irritated. "I'm kinda busy right now."

Nina jumped, bouncing off the bed and a shelf to land square in the middle of Kirb's desk, somehow managing not to slip on the pile of books and papers there. Sitting where she'd landed, the cat seemed to give Kirb a stern look. "Take a break," she ordered in a squeaky voice. "You've been working far too long."

Kirb sighed. "I'm  _fine!_ " he insisted, throwing a hand in the air. "Besides, you're one to talk, Miss Workaholic!"

Nina sniffed loudly. "At least leave this room. You've only come out today to eat. Even at my worst, I try to change up my surroundings every so often."

Rolling his eyes, Kirb pushed his chair back and stood up, shifting into Zetto. "I don't need a _babysitter_ ," he argued, and made a grab for Nina's tail.

The cat easily dodged the taller shifter, and, in retaliation, deliberately pushed a book off the desk.

"Hey!" Zetto objected. "That's a  _library book_ , don't damage that!"

Never breaking eye contact with Zetto, Nina shoved a pile of paper to the floor.

Zetto growled, and leapt on the cat. She avoided his grasp and made a run for the door, but the taller shifter was close behind, shifting back into Kirb as he chased her across the apartment and into her room, where Kirb managed a flying tackle that pinned the smaller Nina in his arms.

"Aha!" Kirb gloated as Nina struggled to escape his grip, only for her captor to shift to Zetto and hold her all the tighter. "Thought you could get away from me, huh? Well, you thought wrong!" 

After pridefully laughing for several long moments, Zetto finally released the cat, who leapt to the floor and shifted back into Kizuna, shaking and brushing at her arms as she shot glares in her flatmate's direction. "You didn't need to hold me so tightly!" she objected.

Zetto shrugged. "Maybe not," he admitted, "but there were better ways to get me out of my room." He turned and began heading back to it. "If those books are damaged, you're payin' for 'em."

"You're not  _already_ going back to working, are you?" Kizuna asked in disbelief, following Zetto and grabbing at his arm to stop him from going too far. "I'm talking to you, here!"

"I noticed," Zetto replied, rolling his eyes as he reluctantly stopped walking and looked at her over his shoulder. "Was there something in particular you were interrupting me about?"

Kizuna grimaced in quiet thought for a few moments. "Well..."

Zetto's annoyance was quickly replaced with concern as he registered his friend was genuinely worried about something, and he turned to face her fully, an arm reaching out to rest on her shoulder. "What's the matter?"

To his surprise, Kizuna chuckled. "It's nothing all that serious," she assured him with a smile. "Honestly, it's something that's been bugging me for almost a year now, and I just feel stupid bringing it up when it's... inconsequential at the most."

"Really?" Zetto removed his arm from her shoulder, regarding his friend with a raised eyebrow. "Well, what is it? You've got me curious, now."

Kizuna sighed, thinking to herself for a few moments. "Well..." She looked Zetto in the eyes. "After the virus attacked the base, and Kirb went off on his own."

Zetto flinched, turning his gaze to the carpet. "Oh."

"Exactly," Kizuna said with a humourless laugh. "And I could have sworn you said at the time you'd be going back to Zikiyu, or at least _leaving Tome_ , only to find a couple years later that you only got as far as Lavendera?" She shook her head. "I'm not mad about it, but honestly, what happened to stop you? It can't have been meeting the others, because you'd only known them a year when I found you again."

Zetto scratched at the back of his neck, thinking to himself. "Um." He remembered vividly the emotional pain Kirb had suffered after the separation, and how it had haunted him for every moment of the following year...  _still_ haunted him, sometimes. Only running into GC by chance at the brawling meetup, and subsequently befriending Nye, Flamey, and later Alpha, had started to change that. He groaned to himself in annoyance. "Would... you believe... I was more scared of going home than staying put?"

Kizuna blinked in surprised disbelief. "Really?"

"Nothing against my parents," Zetto insisted, nervously holding his hands up, "but I was kinda depressed over being 'broken' and given how I'd left and how long it's been since I've spoken to them, a reunion wasn't something I was looking forward to."

"Huh." Kizuna slowly nodded. "That makes sense I suppose. But still, you didn't have to go to Zikiyu; You could've stayed in Allamar or something."

Zetto shrugged, still staring at the floor. "I... I guess, even though Kirb had trouble thinking things through without Zetto, I'd realised there would still have been advantages to both of me sticking around... I changed my mind about going, but it was too late to find you again."

Kizuna couldn't resist a smile. "Well, how about that." As Zetto looked up at her in confusion, she pulled him towards her for a hug. "I missed you a lot during those two years, y'know. It was tough going sometimes, without your jokes to keep my spirits up."

Zetto stood, frozen, for a few moments before relaxing and returning Kizuna's heartfelt hug. "I missed you a lot, too."


	4. BACK: First Encounter, Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay! I've been distracted by Pokemon, so fanfic took a bit of a backseat this past week! I can't promise any sort of schedule for this thing for the foreseeable future, anyway.

**BACKSTORY**

**FOUR HUNDRED YEARS AGO**

**THE ANCIENT CURSED LANDS**

 

The first of them to snap had been Trickin. Their first night camping in the Cursed Lands, as he and Precious were taking first shift sleeping, the slime dissolved into an orange puddle and suddenly raced away along the ground. "Stop him!" Lorekai shouted, and she and Dalmate both dove for their fleeing comrade at once. Lorekai fell face-first into the dirt, but Dalmate shifted into Tikana and quickly caught up with Trickin, pouncing on the slime, who quickly moved to the side to slip out from underneath the spotted dog. Tikana was faster than he anticipated though, and jumped on the slime again, calling up a small ring of fire around them both that forced Trickin to a halt. Forced back to his senses, he reformed into a blob-like body with no visible features of the human-like form they'd first met him as, a form he would stick to for the remainder of their journey.

 

Dalmate followed Trickin's example when they stopped for lunch on their second day. As they were packing up to go, suddenly Dalmate disappeared, and everyone looked up in shock to see Tikana sprinting away from them. This time, it was Trickin who was able to catch up, leaping onto the dog's back and surrounding him with his orange slime, forcing Tikana to a halt as he tried to shake the slime off.

 

On their third day, Precious began crying. She never attempted to run, only dropping to the ground every few hours and begging her mother to let her return home. Although it hurt, Lorekai took to ignoring her daughter, and Dalmate would drag the sobbing girl along as they continued to walk. Moments of joy between the group were stretching further and further apart.

 

* * *

 

Lorekai was staring at her map as they walked. She'd been able to locate their position by the stars at night, and with three days' worth of marked locations behind them, it was now a simple matter to estimate where they were by day. _'At this pace, another three, four, maybe five days and we'll be past the halfway point,'_ she reasoned.  _'Like Dalmate pointed out, it should all get easier from there.'_ Behind her, she could hear the soft thudding of Dalmate's and Precious' feet on the ground, and the quiet slurping of Trickin moving across the dirt. Occasionally Precious would sniff to herself, blue feathers rustling nervously. It was, all in all, as quiet as it had been since Precious last broke down two hours ago.

All of that changed in a matter of seconds.

There was a loud bang as six tendrils of _black_ sprung out of the ground around the four explorers. Screaming in terror, they instinctively jumped away from the tendrils and hit each other, stumbling to the ground as they scrambled to find a way out of the cage. The black tentacles lashed at them, whipping painfully against their arms and legs and causing them only to panic all the more. Finally seeming to finish playing with its captives, one of the tendrils lashed out and wrapped firmly around Precious' leg, pulling her to the ground as the other five disappeared back into the dirt. Lorekai, Trickin and Dalmate made to run for safety, the latter shifting into Tikana for the speed boost, but Precious' cries pierced through their own terror and called the group to a halt.

" _Precious!_ " Lorekai shouted as she turned and ran back to her daughter, but it was already too late. The other tendrils had re-emerged and covered Precious, hiding her completely from sight and pulling her underground. Lorekai reached the mass of _black_ and screamed "Let go of my daughter!", but the punch she threw went straight through the tendril she had aimed at, and she recoiled with a gasp of pain.

Trickin ran up behind the human and pulled her back. "It's made of magic," he cried, "you can't hurt it with your fists!"

"Let us take care of it!" Tikana added as he ran up beside them, growling fiercely as he shifted back into Dalmate and readied a fireball in one paw.

Suddenly the black seemed to disappear, leaving a hole in the ground. Precious was lying face down and seemingly unconscious in the middle, her malformed black wings spread out as though about to take flight and her arms hidden underneath her body.

"Oh thank goodness!" Lorekai sighed in relief as she jumped down into the hole, kneeling next to her daughter.

Dalmate dissipated the fireball and laughed. "Well, guess we scared it off, huh?"

Trickin only stared at Precious as Lorekai tried to wake her, shaking the teen by the shoulder. "I... don't remember her wings being _black_ ," he whispered, eyes narrowing.

When Lorekai's attempts to wake her daughter failed, she groaned in resignation. "We'll have to carry her," she announced. "We can't stay here." As she moved to pull Precious over her shoulder, suddenly the girl's eyes snapped open, glowing a bright red and glaring in Lorekai's direction. Crying in shock, Lorekai let go of the girl and jumped away, but Precious threw a clawed hand into the air and another tendril emerged from the dirt, curling around Lorekai like a spring as it trapped her where she stood.

" _Crap!_ " Dalmate shouted as he jumped back, hurrying to form another fireball in his paws.

Precious turned to the slime and shifter, pointed teeth growling for only a moment before she leapt at them with terrifying speed. Trickin moved equally quickly, pushing Dalmate to one side just as the possessed teen reached them, lashing out at the orange slime with a roar. He fought back as best he could, avoiding her strikes by simply reverting to liquid form, but more tendrils sprung out of the dirt around him and began to painfully join in the girl's attack.

Dalmate had watched all this in shock, having rolled away when Trickin pushed him aside. His meagre fireball had faded away already, so when the tendrils reappeared and spurred the shifter back into action, he was quick to call up another as he got back to his feet. " _Hey!_ " he shouted, "why don't you pick on someone else for a while, huh?" When Precious and the tendrils just seemed to ignore him, he added in annoyance "I'm talking to you!" and threw off his fireballs.

Meanwhile, Lorekai was trying to get out from inside the coiled tendril trapping her in the hole. Trying to simply walk through the cloud proved impossible as it stung too badly to even quickly dash through. She wordlessly shouted in frustration, unable to see much of the fight outside through the opaque blackness of the tendril around her. _'Just because I can't see,'_ she argued with herself, reaching into her pockets, _'doesn't mean I can't fight!'_

With one great smash, the tendrils around Trickin slammed down on the slime at the same time Precious swiped at him with her claws, and the slime was hit so hard he disintegrated instantly, leaving only a faint orange stain on the dirt where he once stood. Dalmate paused in his tossing of fireballs, shocked at the disappearance of his friend and unwilling to believe a hardy slime could be killed so easily. " _Trickin!_ " he screamed, but it only attracted Precious' attention, as her head snapped around to direct her glowing red stare at him instead.

A bang echoed across the frozen air, and Precious collapsed, a massive hole through the centre of her body. As the black faded from her feathers, the tendril surrounding Lorekai suddenly tightened, and Dalmate saw a gun dropping to the ground as the human's screams revealed her fate. The shifter cast one last look at the still body of Precious, the stain on the ground that was once Trickin, and the five tendrils making movements in his direction, then made his decision.

He shifted into Tikana and ran.

 

* * *

 

**_Four hundred years later..._ **

 

Alpha thought to himself as he ran his fingers over the plaque in the Memorial Garden of Netking Labs. He'd been here plenty of times to read the brand new one dedicated to the deceased members of the DeBug Organisation, but until now had overlooked the pre-existing reason the Garden was here in the first place.

"It's amazing, isn't it?" Flamey asked from beside him.

"So many names," Alpha agreed with awe. "And they all died exploring...?"

Flamey shook her head. "Kir-, _Zetto_ , was telling me some of their stories, or at least what we know of them." She pointed to a star-like symbol next to most of the listed names. "That marks the ones who never returned. The others all managed to survive, but either didn't talk about what happened or never had their stories written down."

Alpha frowned to himself. "That's still a lot who died."

"Yeah," Flamey admitted, "but considering how long Tome was just 'The Cursed Lands', it's kinda understandable. You're gonna have the idiots at least once a generation who think they can do it better than anyone before them."

The pair stood in silence for a moment as Alpha continued to read the list. One name in particular caught his eye, one without a star beside it, and he pointed it out to Flamey. " _'Tikana (Dalmate)'_ ," he read aloud. "That's a Kiziti name, isn't it?"

Flamey laughed. "Oh, Zetto told me about that guy! I shouldn't laugh, it's really tragic actually." She grimaced at herself. "He was the only one in his group to survive, and since the leader of his expedition was some really famous explorer at the time, no-one believed his story of what happened." She crossed her arms as Alpha winced in sympathy. "Apparently he was laughed out of Allamar and died alone in South Delta or something. It's the main 'Cursed Lands' story taught in the Kiziti Plains, even though apparently this guy wasn't even born there, just was closely descended from it."

"Poor guy," Alpha sighed to himself, looking at the other three names next to Tikana's, all marked with stars. "And now the Cursed Lands doesn't even exist anymore, he's just a name in a list."

Flamey shrugged. "We're all just names in a list eventually. At least he'll be remembered as the victim he was, right?"

After a pause, Alpha nodded. "I guess so," he agreed, and backed away from the plaque. He paused a moment more, then turned to the batwing beside him. "Want to go to the library?"

"The library?" Flamey repeated in confusion. "Why?"

Alpha smiled. "I guess I can sympathise with someone who was a victim of the virus, though in a different way to me." He shrugged. "I just... want to remember him. All of them, if I can. Learn their stories." Laughing, he added, "That's what Zetto seems to have done!"

Flamey giggled, thought for a few moments, then slowly nodded, taking her boyfriend's hand. "Sure. We can do that."


	5. FORG: Long Way From Home

**FORGOTTEN SCENE**

**DEBUG ORGANISATION BASE**

 

It had been a very busy week for Zetto. Flashblade had assigned him to train up a group of new recruits to be battle-ready, and this combined with his own sword-fighting lessons and other duties had eaten up almost all of his free time; His group of friends and acquaintances, as much as he loved hanging out with them, had taken up what little he had left. Thus, it was with no regrets that, on this particular morning, it was the relatively unknown Kirbopher who sat in the mess hall, eating breakfast with his sadly-neglected best friend, Kizuna.

"Hey, stranger," Kizuna said with a smile as she sat down with her tray.

Kirb smiled back. "Hey! Yeah, I've been real busy this week."

Kizuna laughed, snatching up her fork. "I don't blame you! Flash put you up to teach those newbies how to fight, and didn't even arrange time off from your regular shifts?"

"Yeah, and I'm on scouting duty this fortnight," Kirb groaned. "I guess he just didn't have the time. I don't mind so much. The worst part is not having as much time to hang out."

After a nod of understanding from Kizuna, the pair sat and ate in silence for a few minutes.

"How are the newbies, by the way?" Kizuna asked.

Kirb shrugged. "They're doing well, I suppose. Some of 'em are doing better than others obviously, mostly the ones who were pretty good brawlers already."

Kizuna frowned in thought. "Yeah... Had any get homesick?"

"One, yeah," Kirb replied with a nod. "Prob'ly the same one you were processing, right?"

Grimacing, Kizuna nodded back. "I told that guy he was probably better off leaving Tome," she sighed.

"Too late now," Kirb chuckled darkly. "Crimcaw's actually pretty good at fighting, if he would stop whining all the time about how much he wants to tell his family where he is!" He rolled his eyes as he took another bite of his pancakes.

Kizuna didn't reply immediately, thinking to herself for several moments as she played with her bacon and eggs. "Kirb?" she eventually asked.

"What?" Kirb answered through a mouthful of food.

"Do you ever miss home?"

Kirb froze, a forkful of delicious syrupy goodness halfway to his mouth. "Um." He lowered his fork, trying to hide his instinctive sad frown behind a confused glare. "Kiz, _this_ is home, I can't miss the place I live in!"

Kizuna rolled her eyes. "The _Kiziti Plains_ , dumbass! You were from Zikiyu, right?"

Wincing, Kirb nodded, shovelling more food into his mouth.

"So?" Kizuna prompted. "Did you have friends? Family?"

Kirb carefully swallowed his food and sighed. "Yeah," he admitted, staring at his plate sadly. "Parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins... you name it, I had it." He laughed to himself. "Friends, too, come to think of it."

"Hmm." Kizuna thought for a moment. "I had friends and parents. Older sister. Didn't get on much with any family beyond that."

"You have a sister?" Kirb asked in surprise. "I didn't know that."

Kizuna smiled. "Because I never mention her," she pointed out. "I sent them a message when I first signed up here, saying I was going to be 'off the grid' so to speak, and didn't know when I'd be able to get back to them." Eyebrows furrowed, she scooped up some of her egg in her fork. "Of course, they'll probably be worrying about me by now. Nothing we can do about that."

Kirb tried not to look guilty. "So, um, you aren't worried they'll come looking for you?" he asked, doing his best to seem nonchalant.

"No," Kizuna replied, shrugging. "They won't find the base." She gave her friend a pointed look, one eyebrow raised. "And you?"

"Uh, um," Kirb stuttered, tapping his fork against the puddle of syrup in his plate. "I, uh..." He sighed, dropping his fork to cover his face with his hands. "Look," he said, slowly lowering his hands but avoiding looking up, "I lied to them about this trip I was going on. I last wrote home back in... Allamar, I think. Or maybe Wengaland?" He shook his head. "Even if they did know I was in Tome, by now I don't think they'd want to talk to me anymore."

Kizuna was surprised. "I see." She wasn't sure what to think about her friend's answer. Luckily, she didn't have to reply immediately, as there was a clatter next to Kirb as a chair fell over, and a pink slime popped up from a newly-arrived puddle on the ground.

Kirb, having looked up at the noise, grinned in surprise. "Pingunk!" he cried. "You couldn't have popped up at a more perfect time!"

"Oh, really?" Ping asked, sounding nervous. "I, uh, didn't want to interrupt anything..."

"It's fine," Kizuna assured her with a smile, "really. Go ahead and tell us why you're here."

Ping sighed loudly in relief and clung to Kirb's arm. "Zet-, I mean, Kirbopher, _please_ tell me you're free later to do some training! I really need it!"

Kirb frowned curiously. "Why?" he asked. "Are you _picking fights_ with people!?"

"No, no, of course not!" Ping insisted. "I just... need some help and today's the only day I have time!"

Although he didn't believe her excuses, Kirb shrugged and decided to go with it. "Alright, yeah, I _do_ happen to have a couple hours free this afternoon. We can practise then."

Ping cheered, clapping her slimy hands. "Awesome! I'll see you then, Zet-, I mean, Kirbopher!" She then seemed to suddenly notice Kizuna (despite having just spoken to her) and stood stock still for a moment, leaning in close to Kirb as she stared at the other shifter. "So, uh, does Kizuna know you're a...?"

Kirb bit back a laugh. "Um, yes," he replied, " _Kizuna_ is aware I'm a _Kiziti_ shifter."

"Oh good!" Ping said with another sigh of relief, and she turned to walk away, waving at Kirb. "I'll see you this afternoon then!"

Kirb waved back for a only a few moments before bursting into laughter. Kizuna shook her head. "Have you still not told her?" she asked. "I've already said, if you trust someone to keep a secret-!"

"Calm down!" Kirb cried as his giggling died down. "Honestly, I thought your name would give it away this time!"

Kizuna smiled. "I will shift in front of her someday, just you watch."

"Aw, don't do that!" Kirb pleaded through the amused smile still on his face. "It's fun to hint and see how long it takes for her to twig!"

Quietly chuckling to herself, Kizuna shook her head. "If you insist," she agreed. "For now."

Kirb grinned. "Fair enough!"


	6. BACK: Bullies Bullied

**BACKSTORY**

**TWENTY YEARS AGO**

**NORTHERN ZIKIYU**

 

Down the crowded halls of the Rikinu Primary School, a long-legged bird zig-zagged between legs and under feet. Classes had yet to start, so the other students did no more than shoot him annoyed looks, while the occasional parent simply ignored him. One teacher rolled their eyes and shouted, "No running in the halls!", but was paid no heed by the rushing creature.

Reaching the end of a hallway, the bird dashed right into a classroom, and immediately shifted into a short humanoid child, no older than five, with paper-white skin, messy green hair and a round, friendly face. Grinning widely, he ran to a table at the back corner of the room, bypassing the one or two other students dotted around to wave at another shifter child, crouched in her chair and hugging her knees tightly. "Zallana!"

The girl blinked wide pink eyes, and looked up. Her gaze didn't quite meet his, but she smiled as she recognised her friend. "Hi..."

Pausing, the boy's smile faded, and he stopped at Zallana's side in concern. "What's the matter?"

Zallana stared at the ground, biting her lip. "I brought something for show and tell."

"Cool!" the boy cried, then frowned. "Wait, _today!?_ I forgot again!? It's too late to borrow anything from Daddy!" Humphing, he plopped down on the chair next to hers.

"It's every Wednesday," Zallana pointed out quietly, and when her friend didn't immediately respond, she rested her head on her knees, hugging her legs tighter. "It's okay. I don't have anything to show, too."

The boy looked up curiously. "But you said you brought something in!"

Still hiding her face, Zallana nodded.

Red eyes widened as the boy suddenly connected the dots, and he frowned, teeth shifting into sharp points. "Lemme guess: Zuvodi?"

Zallana nodded again.

Growling, the boy stood up. "I'll be right back."

"Wait!" Zallana cried, reaching for the boy's hands to hold him back, but he only shook her off and continued walking to the door. She got up to follow him. "Zetto, you'll get in trouble again!"

"They deserve it!" the boy replied, and he ran out into the hallway.

"Zetto!" Zallana called in distress, but her friend was already gone.

 

* * *

 

In a corner of the playground, hidden from the front door by the bike shed, stood a trio of five-year-olds gathered around a large teddy bear. They poked and prodded at it, laughing to themselves.

"You think we should burn it?" a boy named Zuvodi asked with a grin. "I've always wanted to see what a toy like this looks like on fire!"

"No, let's play cops and robbers!" a girl named Zetuko insisted. "We can shoot it dead and bury it, like my grandpa!"

The last of the trio, the boy Zokki, frowned in confusion. "You shot your grandpa?"

" _Noooooo,_ " Zetuko whined, "my grandpa _died,_ idiot!"

"I'm not an idiot!"

As the pair began to descend into a slapfight, one of their classmates rounded the corner and spotted them. Zuvodi saw him approaching and smacked his friends to grab their attention. " _Zetto's coming,_ " he hissed, and the three turned to face the shark-toothed boy as he stood opposite them.

"That's Zallana's!" Zetto announced with a determined frown. "Give it back!"

"It's not _yours_ either," Zetuko pointed out. "Finders keepers, loser!"

Zetto wasn't impressed. "You didn't find it, you _took it_ from her!"

Zuvodi scoffed, crossing his arms. "So _she_ says. We just found it here, didn't we?" Zokki and Zetuko giggled and nodded in agreement.

Scowling, Zetto ordered "Give it back or I'll beat you up!"

"Yeah right!" Zokki shot back. "Can't you count, or are you as much a loser as Zallana?"

At that, young Zetto saw red. Shifting into as big a dog as he could manage at his age, he leapt at the trio with a roar. Not expecting such a strong and sudden reaction, the three shrieked in terror and scattered, but Zetto was faster than they anticipated and managed to knock over Zuvodi as he landed. Angry and wanting to hurt them like they hurt his friend, Zetto didn't hesitate to strike at his classmate with his claws, scratching Zuvodi across the face. Still screaming, the boy shifted into a ferret and rolled out from underneath Zetto's paw, shifting again into a small monkey-like creature to run away, clutching at his face still. Zetto, feeling calmer, shifted into a brown-skinned humanoid form, keeping the pointed ears of the dog form for now, and he grabbed the large teddy bear. He knew he'd probably hurt Zuvodi badly, but it was nothing the school nurse couldn't heal, and besides, he'd deserved it for everything he'd done to Zallana. In fact, Zetto wished he'd had the chance to hurt him _more_.

The five-year-old carried the teddy out from behind the bike sheds. The crowds had started to disappear as the start of the school day approached, so there weren't many people around anymore. Feeling proud of himself, Zetto trekked towards the front doors, only to stop as he noticed a familiar figure crouched against the wall not far away. _'Zallana? What's she doing here?'_ Although he was upset she'd followed him and could have gotten hurt, he knew to be angry at her would be counter-productive, so instead he ran up to the hiding girl and held out the retrieved bear. "Hey, guess what I found!"

Zallana started and looked up, coming face-to-face with her beloved teddy. "Mister Twinkles!" she cried, standing as she hugged the plush toy tightly, pulling it effortlessly from Zetto's grasp. "I missed you so much!" Sniffing back tears, she looked over at Zetto (again, not quite meeting his eyes) and smiled. "Thanks, Zetto."

The boy grinned widely, square teeth shining. "No problem!"

Above them, a speaker attached to the school wall came to life, playing the loud ringing sound of a bell. Zallana gasped. "We'll be late for class!" she cried, and dashed forward, grabbing Zetto's hand as she ran for the doors. Just as they were dashing up the steps alongside the handful of other students still in the playground, an imposing adult figure with a tight bun of fire-red hair strode out, pale yellow eyes scanning the crowd until they locked on to Zetto and Zallana, who glanced at each other guiltily, Zallana clutching her teddy tightly. Zetto squeezed her hand to offer support.

Principal Horizon shooed everyone inside wordlessly, and stepped forward to meet the young pair. "I would like to see you in my office immediately, Zetto," she said to the dog-eared boy.

"But you can't!" Zallana cried, looking up to the principal's chin pleadingly. "If he's late for class, he'll get in trouble!"

"Zetto is already in trouble, Zallana," Horizon replied, casting a stern gaze at the boy, who shrunk back and released Zallana's hand. "I suggest you get to class, young lady, before you get in trouble too."

Zallana looked over at Zetto, who simply nodded at her to go ahead. Whimpering to herself, the girl ran off inside, hugging her bear tightly.

 

* * *

 

"Zuvodi, Zetuko and Zokki were just telling me what happened outside just now," Horizon explained as she sat behind her desk, fingers steepled as she stared at the boy sat before her. "They say they weren't doing anything when you suddenly attacked them. Care to explain, young man, or should I skip ahead and call your parents now?"

Zetto humphed to himself, crossing his arms as he sat perched on the large chair. On the walk there, he'd again shifted to change his skin-colour to the same orange as the principal before him, and adjusted his pointed dog-ears to be more floppy. "They're _lying!_ " he objected. "They stole Zallana's teddy that she brought in for show-and-tell!"

"And how does that excuse you from clawing Zuvodi's eyes?" Horizon asked with a pointed glare.

"I didn't hurt him _that_ bad," Zetto said with a shrug. "But those guys never get punished! They keep picking on Zallana just 'cuz she's different, and they steal her stuff all the time and they just get away with it! _I'm_ the only one who's ever punished!"

Horizon sighed, rubbing her eyes. "Just because you don't see them being punished doesn't mean they _aren't_ ," she explained. "When they are being bad, you _go to a teacher_. We have told you this _so many times_ now."

Zetto shouted incoherently in anger, banging his legs against the chair. "I _have_! I just told you, they always get away with it! _You're not listening to me!_ "

"You calm down right now, young man," Horizon ordered, "or I will be calling your father to come and collect you! You don't want to disappoint him like that, do you?"

The only response from the five-year-old was a loud scream and repeated banging of his chair.

Horizon resisted the urge to roll her eyes as she went for her phone.  _'I hate this job sometimes...'_

 

* * *

 

An hour later, a young shifter boy sat curled up in a chair at the back of the reception office, almost entirely hidden behind a pair of wings he'd shifted his arms into, the exact shade of blue of the chair he was pressing himself against so tightly.

"Plume!" called a familiar voice, and the receptionist currently babysitting Zetto stood from her desk to run to the front counter.

"Zudizi!" Plume replied, greeting a muscular humanoid with skin the colour of aged paper, waiting in the entrance hallway. "Nice to see you!"

"I'm sorry I'm late," Zudizi apologised. "I had trouble finding someone to sub' for my first period, y'know. I hope he hasn't been a problem for you."

Zetto sighed, shifting his wings back into arms.

"Oh, no, no problem," Plume insisted, trying and failing to hide a confused tone. "You're... here, now?"

Zudizi smiled nervously. "Zunni called me, didn't she tell you?"

Plume then gasped as the man opposite her began to quietly laugh. "Oh, you're Zetto's father! Of course, I knew his father was coming and you had a kid in-" She stopped herself before she fell into a ramble and spun around to the chair in the corner. "Zetto, your father's here to collect you!"

The five-year-old sighed loudly and pushed himself off the chair, recolouring his skin from cobalt blue to the green of his father's hair as he went. Plume herded him out the office, raving to Zudizi about how well-behaved he'd been once he'd calmed down, and Zetto pointedly ignored her, glaring at the ground as he reluctantly took his father's hand.

"Thank you for looking after him," Zudizi said as he began to lead his son outside. "I'll see you another time!"

"Until next time!" Plume agreed.

Once they were outside the school building, Zudizi silently began to lead Zetto down the street. The five-year-old recognised the route immediately, as they walked it every morning and afternoon before and after school, heading to and from the car parked at Rikinu Secondary School, where Zudizi worked as a history teacher. He could only guess his father was going to drive him home, and then he would be disturbing both of his parents from their work as his mother would have to put aside her very-important-must-not-be-interrupted job to look after him. He still didn't regret taking on Zuvodi the way he did, but he _was_ starting to feel guilty about all the trouble he was causing his parents.

After what seemed to the five-year-old like an eternity of silence, Zudizi finally spoke. "Do you understand what you did wrong today, Zetto?"

Zetto frowned, looking guiltily at the pavement below his feet. "I hurt Zuvodi," he mumbled.

"Exactly." Zudizi then stopped walking, pulling the surprised Zetto to a halt, and knelt down beside his son. He shifted into his other form, a shorter and pointier humanoid figure with skin and hair as dark as his namesake, and placed his hands on his son's shoulders. "You scratched him in the eye, and there is never any reason to hurt someone like that," Shadow explained. "Your teachers, Principal Zunni, your mother and I have told you many times what to do when you see other kids picking on others."

"They stole Zallana's teddy that she brought in for show-and-tell!" Zetto once again objected.

Shadow blinked in surprise. "Show and tell was today?"

"Yeah!" Zetto replied. "And Zallana had this cool teddy almost as big as me! And they stole it!"

"So why didn't you go to your teacher?"

Zetto shrugged. "She never does anything. They always get away with it when they pick on Zallana! It's not fair!"

Shadow sat silently in thought for a few moments. "Well, if I promise to talk to her, teacher-to-teacher," he offered, "will you promise to go to her next time, instead of taking matters into your own hands?"

The boy thought over the question. "I guess," he agreed.

"Promise?" Shadow pushed.

Zetto nodded. "Promise."

"Good." With that, Shadow stood up and shifted back into Zudizi, plucking his son off the pavement and swinging him onto his shoulders, to a squeal of delight from the surprised Zetto. "Now! Since your mother is so busy with that very important commission she's working on," he explained as he resumed walking, "I had a talk with the principal at my school and we've arranged, _just this once,_ for you to spend the day with me."

"Cool!" Zetto cried, clinging to his father's hair.

" _But,_ " Zudizi continued, "you have to promise to be good and not disturb my students. Alright?"

Zetto nodded enthusiastically. "I will! I promise!"

"Good," Zudizi said with a grin. "When we get home, after the party your mother will inevitably throw for you standing up for another student, you can tell her all about your first day as a high school kid!"

Giggling, Zetto nodded again. "Will you be telling them stories like the ones you tell me?" he asked.

Zudizi laughed. "Sort of! Actually, I have a class today learning about the story I told you last night! Do you remember it?"

"Uh-huh!" the five-year-old cried happily, although as he continued, his smile turned into more of a confused frown. "The Cursed Lands and how Tikana escaped them but no-one believed him and we barely know what his story was because the people who wrote it down were calling him 'Dalmate' because they're idiots."

At that, Zudizi laughed all the harder. "Yeah, they were idiots, weren't they?" he agreed. "Just be sure not to say that during the class, okay?"

"Mmm," Zetto mumbled with a nod.


	7. FORG: Nightmares

**FORGOTTEN SCENE**

**THE SHARED APARTMENT, LAVENDERA**

 

It was only Alpha's second night in Lavendera when Kirb first woke him up unexpectedly.

Hearing regular thudding on the floor through his borrowed sleeping bag, the teenage wengal had been stirred out of sleep and blearily opened his eyes to see his new roommate stalking the clear corridor through the middle of their room. "Kirb...?" he whispered.

The shifter jumped in surprise and looked down at Alpha, seeming to only now remember he was there. "Oh, sorry, dude," he whispered back. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"Wassa matter?" Alpha asked, propping himself up on an elbow.

"Nothing, I'm fine," Kirb insisted. "Go back to sleep."

Alpha squinted at his new friend for a long while before admitting defeat. He _was_ still really tired. "Okay, whatever," he whispered, and lay back down. He didn't know whether Kirb went on to pace the main room, or had gone back to bed, as Kirb was gone when he woke up the next morning.

To Alpha's annoyance, the story repeated itself thrice more over the following weeks, except he never saw Kirb pacing their room again, only heard him doing so in the main room on the other side of the wall. By the fifth time Kirb woke Alpha up in the middle of the night, it was three weeks later, and Alpha snorted into his pillow as he jolted awake in his new bed. He wasn't sure exactly what had woken him at first, but he quickly deduced it was Kirb when he forced his eyes open long enough to see the empty bed across the room, the creaks of the floor in the main room echoing in his ears. _'Enough is enough,'_ the wengal told himself, and he forced himself up into a sitting position, rubbing at his eyes to push himself completely awake. _'I have to talk to him.'_

The creak of the bedroom door opening surprised Kirb, and he looked guilty when Alpha emerged and found him in the middle of pacing the kitchen. "I didn't wake you, did I?" he whispered.

Alpha paused for a moment before deciding the truth was the best way to go and simply nodded.

Kirb sighed, looking away sadly. "Sorry."

"It's fine," Alpha automatically replied, although in truth he was always at least slightly annoyed to find himself awake in the small hours of the morning. "I'm more worried about you. What has you up so often in the middle of the night?"

Staring at his hands as he fiddled with them nervously, Kirb was silent for a long moment. "Are you sure you really want to know that?" he eventually asked.

Alpha nodded.

After another long pause, Kirb ventured out into the main room, stepping towards Alpha. "I don't want you to worry about me, okay?" he said. "I mean, it's not like you'd be able to help me anyway..."

"You never know," Alpha replied with a shrug. He put a hand on his friend's shoulder. "Wanna sit down?"

Kirb nodded, and the pair walked together to the sofa, sitting down with Alpha's hand never leaving Kirb's shoulder.

"When you're ready," Alpha encouraged his friend.

"Yeah," Kirb sighed, taking a deep breath. "It's... nightmares. Bad ones." He shook his head guiltily, looking nervous to even be admitting he was having a problem. "I can never get back to sleep after them, so... I just... try and occupy myself until I can."

Alpha frowned in concern for his friend. "I'm sorry," he said.

"S'not your fault," Kirb replied. "I've had 'em for... at least a year. Since before I met the others." He sighed. "Like I said, there's nothing anyone can do about it."

The pair sat in companionable silence for a few moments before Alpha patted his friend's shoulder. "Actually, there might be." He smiled. "Ever tried a glass of milk? I've always found that helps me get to sleep."

Kirb shook his head. "N-no."

Alpha held back a laugh, standing up. "Come on, I'll get you one tonight."

As Alpha walked over to the kitchen, Kirb followed at a distance. He watched his friend brave the light of the fridge and carefully extricate a glass from the cupboard, and raised a hand nervously. "Um, Alpha, you won't tell the others about this, right?"

"Of course not!" Alpha replied in confusion. It was plainly obvious to him that he wouldn't, not with something so clearly troubling and _private_. What kind of friend would he be to share that? "Why would I ever do that?"

"Who knows," Kirb said with a shrug, but smiled at his friend thankfully.

He had a restful sleep for the rest of that night.

 

* * *

 

**FOREST, OUTSIDE LAVENDERA**

 

Alpha jerked awake with a strangled gasp, and it took him a few moments to recognise where he was. _'Kirb's sleeping bag... out in the forest... everything is_ fine _. No-one's dead.'_ Repeating the short mantra to himself, he sat up and held his head firmly.

Images of the nightmare circled through his brain. He'd seen Kirb's disembodied head, GC exploded, Nye impaled on his own sword, Flamey's limp body... not to mention, an endless replay of the screams from the park in his ears. He shook his head and tried to think of something else, but, as always happened, nothing came to mind and the disturbing images only became stronger. _'Maybe I just need a walk,'_ he told himself, and carefully climbed out of the sleeping bag, taking care not to wake up Flamey next to him. _'She's worried about me enough lately.'_

No sooner had Alpha got to his feet then a voice greeted him out of the darkness. "Nightmare?" Alpha jumped and looked around, quickly locking eyes with a concerned Zetto sat by Kirb's head, poking out of their shared green sleeping bag.

Alpha sighed in relief. "Um, yeah, I'm fine." He glanced around the quiet forest all around them. "Why are you up?"

Zetto chuckled quietly, his pointed grin reflecting light easily in the darkness. "Kizuna put me on first watch, remember?" He rubbed at his neck nervously. "I'm afraid I can't offer you any milk. We don't stock any out here."

"I'm fine," Alpha repeated. After another pause, he decided to make the most of his current company and carefully navigated the small campsite to walk over towards the shifter. "I thought you were supposed to be...?"

"Cold and logical?" Zetto filled in with a smile. "Yeah, on my own I am." As Alpha neared, he noticed that one of Kirb's hands was also sticking out of his sleeping bag, and Zetto's right hand was gripping it tightly. Although he was still feeling groggy from missing sleep, he remembered Kizuna's comment about what happened when Kirb and Zetto touched each other. "In case you're wondering," Zetto interrupted Alpha's train of thought, a sad look on his face as he gestured to himself with his robot arm, "this is more what I was like before the split."

Alpha stared at his friend for a few moments. "I'm sorry," he said, gently sitting down at Kirb's feet.

Zetto just smiled. "It's fine, it's not your fault." He looked up to meet Alpha's eyes. "Hey, if you want, I can keep this a secret like you kept mine."

"Huh?" Alpha asked, staring in confusion.

Chuckling, Zetto shook his head. "Kirb and me are the same person, 'member? You kept the secret about my nightmares, I can keep the secret about yours."

"O-oh," Alpha replied, blushing in embarrassment. He was going to blame his midnight grogginess on forgetting so soon the 'thing' with Kirb and Zetto. In fact, Zetto's comment quickly reminded him of the last time he'd had a conversation with someone in the middle of the night, and he looked up sharply at his blue-haired companion. "Wait, does that mean _both_ of you two have nightmares? And," another horrible thought occurred to him, "does that mean it's a side-effect of the _virus!?_ "

Zetto held up his robot arm, growling " _Shhh!_ " He looked around the campsite, and, seeing no-one stirring, sighed in relief. "Sort of," he finally replied, giving Alpha a sympathetic look. "It's more from the events surrounding it... for me, at least." He shrugged. "Don't know for sure with you, but I suspect it's the same thing."

Alpha winced and nodded. "Yeah." He sighed, hugging himself tightly as he remembered the dream that still scared him even now he was awake. "It was... like, what might have happened, if the others hadn't been able to fight it off." He shivered, staring at his feet. "Everyone was..."

"You don't need to say," Zetto assured him. "Unfortunately, I can guess." He sighed. "I know what it's like to experience that in reality, too."

Alpha didn't respond, still busy fighting off the images in his mind with self-assurances they weren't real.

"I'm sorry I can't help you like you helped me," Zetto continued. "You know how Kirb coped with them first-hand, and me, well," he paused to quietly laugh to himself, "being incapable of emotions has its advantages sometimes."

"Hmm," Alpha mumbled to himself in thought, then looked up at his new friend. "Wait, what did you say earlier? Did you say what your nightmares are of?"

Zetto nodded, grimacing as he looked away. "Yeah. You remember what I said earlier today about the virus attacking the old DeBug base?"

Alpha cast his mind back to that afternoon. "Um, you said it killed everyone but you and Kizuna right?" he asked. "And Kizuna wasn't there at the time but- oh." He looked up at Zetto with horror.

"Yeah, 'oh'," Zetto repeated bitterly. "It was only because Kirb found you guys that it even started to get better for him." He glared up at the starry night sky. "I'd give almost anything to undo everything that _abomination_ has done to us."

Alpha nodded, silently agreeing. "It's only been a few days, and I'm already drained from constantly worrying about... y'know."

Zetto turned a softer look to his friend. "It'll get better," he promised. "Demon will never go away, but I can promise you, you'll learn to cope and control it." He looked down at Kirb, still sleeping peacefully next to them. "Like Kirb and I did."

Alpha silently watched Zetto for several moments. It was finally starting to sink in for him how Zetto and Kirb really were the same person, and he was finding he quite liked what the 'real' Kirb was like underneath Zetto's coldness and Kirb's flightiness. He smiled. "Yeah." Standing up, he brushed any dirt off his legs and nodded to Zetto. "I'd better get back to bed. I won't keep you up any longer."

Zetto laughed. "I'm on watch, I'm _supposed_ to be awake," he pointed out. "But seriously, if you have any more trouble sleeping, just come get one of me. Wake me up if you have to."

Now it was Alpha's turn to fight down a laugh. "Alright, if you insist!" He waved, and walked over to his sleeping bag. "G'night!"

"Goodnight," Zetto replied, turning his gaze once more to the forest surrounding them.

 

* * *

 

**GC AND NYLOCKE'S HOUSE, MECHCITY**

 

It had barely been half a year since the destruction of the virus, and Alpha had never been happier in his life. He and Flamey had decided to take up brawling again, as a team, and Kirb (or, rather, _Zetto_ , as he had to keep reminding himself) had been helping them get back up to speed. Only a few weeks later, there was another amateur competition like the one they'd all turned down in Lavendera, and over the last couple of days, Team FlareWings had miraculously managed to win. One thing led to another, and now Alpha and Flamey were signed up by a well-known sponsor of brawling teams, with their friend Zetto as their official coach and trainer.

The six friends had celebrated by gathering at GC and Nye's new house, and generally having fun together until, one by one, they fell asleep in the living room (except for GC who retired at eleven to his tub upstairs). Nye was spread out, snoring, on the armchair, Nina curled up above him on the top of the seat cushion. Kirb was lying spread-eagled on the floor, head resting on an abandoned cushion from the lounge. Alpha and Flamey were on the lounge, heads resting against one another as Flamey softly snored. Alpha, however, was wide awake.

Although he'd woken up, Alpha didn't think it was anything in particular that had done so, and he wasn't particularly mad about it, either. Today had been an exciting one, and his mind was still racing with thoughts of the bright future ahead of them. He suspected it was purely that which had woken him up tonight, and was content to sit and stare across at Flamey beside him, a happy smile on his face.

It was then Kirb woke up with a gasp.

Alpha jerked in surprise, but was mindful of Flamey still leaning against him and kept as still as he could, watching Kirb rapidly shifting back and forth to Zetto, a panicked look on his face, before he finally seemed to remember where he was and settled back into Kirb, sitting in the middle of the floor and clutching his chest with one hand. Eyes wide, he stared at the carpet and seemed to fight to control his breathing. Alpha watched in concern for a few moments before deciding to speak up. "You alright, Kirb?"

Kirb jumped again, staring up at Alpha for a second or two before sighing in relief. "Oh, it's just you," he whispered back.

Being very careful not to wake her, Alpha moved Flamey so she was resting her weight against the lounge cushions rather than him, and moved to sit on the edge of his seat, leaning towards his friend. "I'm too excited to sleep," he explained with a smile. "Need someone to talk to?"

"Heh," Kirb laughed, shaking his head. "So you should be. It's a big deal. Everyone's proud of you two."

Alpha blushed, though it wasn't easy to see in the darkness. "Thanks," he mumbled. "But really, if you want to talk to someone for a while, I'm right here."

Kirb sat in silence for a few moments, watching his friend, then sighed again. "Yeah, talking would probably be good. It's pretty obvious why I'm awake, anyway."

Nodding once, Alpha got to his feet and left the room, waving for Kirb to follow him. The kitchen was across the hall, and Alpha was sure to turn on the light the moment he entered, waiting in the doorway to adjust to it under the pretence of waiting for Kirb to join him. Once the squinting shifter had entered the room, shielding his eyes from the bulb above them, Alpha closed the door to keep from waking their friends, and headed for the fridge. Kirb watched as his redheaded friend prepared a glass of milk, shooting the shifter a smile. "I don't think Nye and GC will mind this," the wengal elaborated. "If they even notice, I'll take the blame for it." With that, he held the cold glass out to Kirb, who took it gratefully and slowly sipped at it.

Silence reigned in the kitchen for a few minutes, Alpha leaning against the counter while Kirb slowly drained his glass. Eventually, the wengal decided to break the quiet, rubbing the back of his neck. "I kinda feel guilty now."

Kirb raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"I haven't had a nightmare for a couple months now," Alpha explained. "A virus-related one, anyway. And, well, after what you told the Netkings about how it attacked your base-!"

"It's fine, really," Kirb interrupted, trying not to look pained at the reminder. He didn't want his friends to pity him. "They aren't as often as they used to be anyway. And at least I have a way to cope with it now," he added, smiling at his friend, "thanks to you." He placed the now-empty glass in his hands into the sink behind him.

Alpha laughed. "I'm just glad to help!"

"I'm just waiting for them to hurry up and die down already," Kirb continued, rolling his eyes. "I've had plenty of time to mourn my friends, and everything we did is public now... The Founders even put up that plaque to memorialise 'em." He sighed and crossed his arms, Alpha nodding sympathetically. "I... guess it's just harder than I thought to argue away the memories."

"Yeah," Alpha agreed, walking over to his friend and placing a friendly hand on his shoulder. "Don't forget, we're always here to help. That's what friends are for." He laughed. "You guys taught me that."

Kirb smiled, nodding in agreement as he looked up at Alpha. "Yeah, I'll remember that."


	8. BACK: A Discussion of Names

**BACKSTORY**

**TEN YEARS AGO**

**SOUTHERN ZIKIYU**

 

"Are we even _going_ to need these damn formulas for the exam, or will they be on a sheet again?" Tabiko asked from the floor, hunched over his laptop as he scoured digital test sheets for the annual end-of-Year-Ten maths exams.

Lying on the bed above him, Zetto sighed. "I almost hope they aren't, just so we haven't memorised 'em for nothing."

"Considering all the stuff we have to remember, I don't want to start the exam and find I wasted brain-space on that stuff," Zekodi objected from the desk, paging through a text book as he idly spun in the chair.

Zetto scoffed, finishing another test problem with a flourish of his pen. "Your loss, dude."

The trio of teenage boys had trudged to Zetto's house straight from brawling club that day, fulfilling the promises they'd made to various adults that they'd be sure to study for their upcoming exams. Although they had yet to settle into their final set of forms, they were at the age where shifting into something entirely new was harder and harder to do, so the room was a bit cramped with all three of them in there together, despite their efforts to shift into something as small as possible that didn't prevent them from doing their promised studying: Tabiko had chosen a cat-like appearance, covered in striped grey fur with bright yellow eyes, while Zekodi was an almost shapeless humanoid blob of purple fur, brown eyes almost totally invisible under a mass of hair somewhere above his mouth. Zetto himself was short with paper-white skin, messy brown-and-green hair hanging, starfish-like, in front of his sharp red eyes and thick black eyebrows.

The door opened, interrupting the quiet sounds of pen-scratching, typing, and squeaking from Zekodi's idle spinning of his chair. The trio of teens looked up and saw a flower-like woman with blue petals for hair and a thin, willowy green body, smiling widely at them as she held up a tray in her hands. "Hey there, boys!" she said. "I thought you might be hungry!"

"Oh, cool!" Zetto cried as he sat up. "Thanks, Mom!"

"Yeah, thanks Missus Zekka!" Tabiko echoed. Zekodi just smiled as he tossed his textbook onto Zetto's desk.

Zekka handed her tray, complete with three glasses of water and a plate of biscuits, off to her son, who offered it to his friends. "Don't forget," she reminded them, "if you boys have trouble with history, Zudizi will be happy to help!"

Zetto rolled his eyes as he placed the tray on a stool so it was off the floor. "We _know_ , Mom," he replied with no small amount of frustration. "Dad's offered, like, a million times! We're not even _doing_ history right now!"

"Alright, alright!" Zekka relented, holding up her flowerbud-like hands in surrender. "I'll stop bugging you, then!" She turned to leave, but paused to add, "If you need me for anything, I'll be down in the back garden, okay?" As the trio nodded in reply, she left the room and closed the door behind her.

Zekodi laughed to himself as he tossed a biscuit into his mouth. "So," he said as he chewed, "remind me again why you insisted on comin' up here to keep away from your mom when she offers us free food?"

Zetto humphed to himself and ignored his friend's teasing, sipping on water from one of the glasses.

Tabiko stretched as he placed his laptop to one side, lying flat on the carpet. "Can we, like, call a five minute break from even _thinking_ about studying?" he asked. "I don't know about you guys, but my brain hurts."

"Sounds like a good idea to me," Zekodi agreed.

Zetto nodded. "What do you want to do, then? We can't sit in silence for five minutes."

"Oh!" Zekodi cried, holding up a hand as an idea occurred to him. "Remember how Zakiba settled the other day?"

Tabiko and Zetto nodded, slightly confused. "Yeah?" Tabiko asked. "What about her?"

" _So,_ " Zekodi continued, "she was havin' all that trouble thinkin' up names for her other two forms!" He scratched a furry cheek in thought. "Prob'ly still is, actually." He shook his head. "Anyway, I was just thinkin' maybe we should start comin' up with ideas for our own."

"Huh. That's a good idea, actually!" Tabiko said with a smile, sitting up. "I mean, we'll likely be settling ourselves any day now!"

Zetto sighed. "Yeah, except we _haven't_ yet, so we don't even know what our other forms are gonna look like!"

"Aw, stop being such a grumpy-boots, Zet!" Tabiko laughed. "We can still think of possibilities!"

"Yeah, it'll be fun!" Zekodi added.

Shaking his head, Zetto relented, "Fine, whatever."

"Awesome!" Tabiko cried, clapping his hands together. "My dad suggested a cool one to me the other day: Christopher!"

Zetto and Zekodi glanced at each other warily. "Eh, it's decent, I guess," Zekodi replied.

"Sounds a bit boring, doesn't it?" Zetto added.

Tabiko frowned as his enthusiasm died. "Screw you guys."

His friends only laughed. "I'd at least try punching it up before seriously using it, dude," Zetto suggested.

"Well, _duh,_ " Tabiko sighed. "Like, maybe 'Chris-taber', or... um... 'Kiziti-pher'?"

Zetto grimaced playfully. "Nah, those are both lame."

Tabiko glared.

"How about 'Munkstrap' for you, Tabiko?" Zekodi suggested. "Grey tabby cats always fit that name to me."

"And what if I _don't_ settle in this form?" Tabiko replied, gesturing to himself. "What, are _you_ gonna go with 'Furball'?"

Zekodi snorted with laughter. " _'Hairball'_ , maybe!"

Zetto shook his head in amusement. " _This_ is exactly why I'm waiting before I decide for sure."

"Hey," Zekodi suggested, "you could always go with that artist's name... what was it?" He gestured with his arm as he struggled to jog his memory. "I heard it the other day, and I thought it sounded kinda cool."

Tabiko frowned in thought. "The one from Oxbow Country?" he asked.

Zetto snorted. "What, _Kirby!?_ That's not a cool name!"

"Yeah it is!" Zekodi shot back, before relenting with a shrug. "Well, kinda."

"It's _cute_ ," Zetto pointed out.

Tabiko smirked. "Well, _you're_ kinda cute in that form."

Zetto glanced at one of his mitten-like hands and glared at his friend. "Am not! This form is _speedy_!"

" _And_ it's cute," Tabiko replied with a pointy grin. "Face it; big eyes, no nose, round and squishy face? Attracts all the ladies!"

Sighing, Zetto rolled his eyes. "Well, if I end up going with this form, it'll be called 'Speedy', and there's nothing you can do about it."

Zekodi and Tabiko glanced at each other in surprise. "Wait, what?" Zekodi asked.

"Didn't you _just_ say you were waiting until you settled to decide on names?" Tabiko added, arms crossed.

Zetto mumbled and shrugged. "Well, I was figuring I'd end up rolling with the Kiziti Brawler convention anyway, so why not point it out?"

Zekodi contorted his mouth in confusion. "There's a convention?"

"You mean that thing where almost every professional brawler has one small, speedy form and one big, powerful form?" Tabiko asked.

"Yeah," Zetto replied with a nod. "My dad ended up doing it too, and he hasn't brawled in _years_."

"But Speedy's a _dumb_ name!" Zekodi protested.

"But it might be _mine!_ " Zetto shot back angrily, only to calm down and continue in a sad tone, "I haven't decided for sure, anyway. I just thought, if my parents couldn't come up with anything better than _Shadow, Peach and Willow,_ I may as well resign myself to a dumb name."

Tabiko sighed, leaning back. "Yeah, I'll probably end up with something boring, too. At least it'd fit when I become an engineer."

Zekodi winced. "I don't even know _what_ I'm gonna be!" he lamented.

"You'll figure it out," Zetto said with a shrug. "As for me, I'm gonna be-"

"A brawler," Tabiko and Zekodi interrupted in unison. " _We know,_ " Tabiko continued. "You've only said so a million times!"

Zetto grinned, arms held up behind his head cockily. "Well, can't blame me for chasing my dream, huh?"

Zekodi scoffed. "No brawler with the name _Speedy_ is ever gonna be taken seriously!"

"Come talk to me when I'm rich and famous," Zetto said, waving a hand as he brushed his friends' comments off with pride. " _Then_ you can mock whatever name I've chosen!"

"Yeah, we're staging an intervention with you," Tabiko sighed. "Even 'Kirby' is better than _Speedy_."

Zetto just smiled. "Yeah, you keep telling yourself that."

After a long moment of thought, Zekodi snapped his fuzzy fingers. "I've got it!" he cried. "How 'bout 'Kirbopher'!"

Tabiko and Zetto blinked in surprise before Tabiko cheered in delight. "It's perfect!" he cried. "A million times better than 'Speedy'!"

"Oh _hell_ no!" Zetto objected. "You call _yourselves_ 'Kirbopher', if you think it's so good!"

"Sorry buddy," Tabiko replied with a fake smile of sympathy. "I'm afraid your need for a not-lame name is greater than ours."

Zekodi bit back a laugh. "Yep, we're just gonna keep callin' you 'Kirbopher' until you agree it's better than 'Speedy'!"

Zetto glared at his friends, arms crossed. "If I just say it, will you leave me alone?"

"You gotta mean it," Tabiko insisted. "Friends don't let friends name themselves 'Speedy'."

"Well, you're gonna be waiting a long time then," Zetto growled, "'cause I'm _never_ calling myself something as _stupid_ as _Kirbopher!_ "

Zekodi and Tabiko grinned at each other. "Whatever you say, Kirbopher," Tabiko said.

The resulting twitch in Zetto's eyelid made the teasing totally worth it.


	9. FORG: Netkings' Watch, Part 1

**FORGOTTEN SCENE**

**NETKING LABS, MECHCITY**

 

Execk stared at his phone with growing concern. It was half-an-hour past the end of the working day, and, as far as he knew, his four colleagues had all gone home. He usually stayed a little later than they did, but not longer than about twenty minutes. _'True, he is sometimes very late,'_ the batwing reminded himself, his leathery wings fluttering in the only outward sign of his nervousness, _'but it's unlike him to not at least text a warning that he can't make it.'_ When his phone continued to stay silent despite Execk's begging stares, he sighed and leaned back in his chair. "What the hell are you doing, sword-boy?"

The door to the office suddenly opened, making its lone occupent jump in surprise as he turned to see the tall wengal poking his head through the doorway. "Execk?" Webmaster asked curiously. "What are you doing here still?"

Execk shrugged, gesturing to his phone. "You can ask Flash, when he finally gets around to contacting me."

Webmaster's eyebrows shot up in surprise, and he entered the office. "That's odd," he said. "He hasn't called yet?"

"Yup," Execk replied with a nod. "Hasn't called, texted, emailed... nothing!"

Frowning in thought, Webmaster tapped his mouth as he stared at the phone. "I hope nothing's happened..." He looked up at Execk. "Do you think we should head over there?"

Execk shook his head. "No, no," he answered, standing up out of his chair and stretching his tired limbs. "I don't want to scare his underlings for no reason." He thought for a moment, then made a decision. "I'll see tomorrow if he's left a message. _Then_ we can start to worry."

 

* * *

 

"Webmaster, we have a problem..."

The wengal frowned as he looked up from his desk, having just sat down as he entered the office that morning. "Execk?" he asked, confused.

Execk sighed, leaning against the door to Webmaster's office. "Flash didn't leave a message last night. I've heard nothing from him since two days ago."

Webmaster almost gasped as he remembered the conversation he and Execk had the previous night. "Have you tried calling him?"

"Yes," Execk replied solemnly. "The phone just kept ringing, no answer."

The wengal frowned in concern, then jumped out of his seat, dashing into the open area in the middle of their offices. "Who else is here right now?" he shouted, glancing around through the open doors. "Kindar, I know you are!"

The blonde human stuck her head out of the office next to Webmaster's. "Webby?" she asked. "What's going on?"

"Yeah!" came a call from the door opposite hers, where a mushroom-like shifter was opening his door with a glare. "I was in the middle of some _extremely urgent_ work here!"

"Is Rubi here?" Execk asked, following closely behind Webmaster, and Kindarspirit shook her head.

"He's probably still on his way," the human explained, leaving her office as she realised whatever was happening was something very important. "Do you want me to call him?"

Webmaster thought a moment before nodding. "Tell him to meet us on the road to where Flash lives."

Bitshrum's eyes widened in surprise. "Wait, we're going _there!?_ " he asked. "Why!?"

Kindar gasped, her hands held up to her mouth. "Has something happened to Flash!?"

"We don't know yet," Execk replied. "We're going there specifically to find out."

 

* * *

 

As Webmaster's car pulled up at the point where Mechcity met the forest, Rubi stepped out onto the pavement, waving hello to his friends and colleagues. "Dudes, what's going on?" he laughed, his grin looking only slightly strained. "Been waiting for you for almost an entire minute!"

The four Netkings all left Webmaster's car. Kindar restrained herself from running down the road on her own, instead jumping on Rubi with a hug. "Oh, this is terrible!" she cried.

"Not necessarily," Webmaster reminded her, patting his friend on the shoulder. "He still may have only been too busy to call us or attend his phone this morning."

Rubi carefully extricated himself from Kindar. "I just knew this was about Flash," he muttered, looking down the road. "I haven't seen anything, but I only just got here myself."

"That could be a good or a bad thing," Bitshrum pointed out.

"Agreed," Execk said with a nod, and he turned to Webmaster. "We decided we were walking there, correct?"

The wengal thought for a moment. "We could drive a little way further, I suppose. Just not all the way to the gate, is my point." He smiled, although was unable to hide his nervousness of what they might find. "Don't want to scare them unnecessarily, after all!"

 

* * *

 

The five Founders of Tome rounded the final corner on the road on foot and carefully came within sight of the gate to the DeBug Organisation's base. Almost immediately Kindar gasped in shock and ran on ahead, and it didn't take much motivation for the other four to follow.

The base was a mess. The gate was almost unrecognisable through the damage that had been done to it, and the missing wall on their right once they entered the enclosed square was a clear indicator of what had happened the previous day.

"Oh no..." Kindar whispered, hands over her mouth.

Execk frowned as he looked over the mess of rubble and bodies. "We need to look for survivors," he pointed out.

Webmaster, who had been comforting Kindar with a hand on her shoulder, nodded. "That's a good idea. Be careful not to scare them."

Rubi nodded. "I'll go first," he offered, running ahead and activating his hologram port to imitate Flashblade. He proceeded to slowly circle around the yard, looking for complete bodies as he hoped for a sign of life.

"Should someone go get the car?" Bitshrum asked, tapping his fingers together in worry. "I don't think we need to worry about scaring someone now."

"That's a good point," Webmaster replied, and he pulled his keys out of his pocket, handing them to a surprised Kindar. "Kindar, you and Bits get the car."

Kindar paused for a moment before nodding. "We'll be right back," she promised, then gestured to Bitshrum, and the pair ran back down the road.

Webmaster and Execk only glanced at each other before following Rubi, who had picked his way through the rubble and made it to the entrance of the main building. He looked back at them following him, and waved at them with an annoyed tone. "Hurry up!" he cried, unable to disguise his voice as he could his appearance. "If there _is_ anyone still alive, they're gonna need us quick!"

The trio made their way down the hallway, Rubi in front disguised as Flashblade while Webmaster and Execk stayed behind him. It was much simpler checking inside that it had been out, as it was clear the yard was where the majority of the Organisation had gone for their last battle. Rubi followed the trail of body parts to the open doorway of what he quickly realised was some kind of dining area, and dropped his disguise with a gasp, running inside. Webmaster and Execk glanced at each other before following, and were saddened, although unsurprised, to find Flashblade's body on the floor, in the middle of the destroyed tables and chairs that littered the large room. Although he was still in one piece, the black puddle beside him did not raise their hopes.

Rubi ran to Flash's side and held a hand to his neck, but almost immediately removed it to sadly look back up at his friends, shaking his head. "Stone cold," he said, standing up again.

Webmaster sighed. He wanted to say something, but nothing seemed fitting.

Execk thought for a few moments, eyes closed. "So the virus killed them all," he said. "That's the end of the DeBug Organisation."

"Not necessarily," Webmaster replied. As Rubi and Execk looked over at him curiously, he met their gaze with a determined frown. " _We're_ still here. As long as we survive, that virus is on the run. I don't know about you, but I intend to keep it that way."

"We can't throw all our resources into this, Webmaster," Execk reminded him sternly. "Our hands are still tied by the Plan-Net contract, remember?"

Webmaster nodded. "I'm aware." He sighed, crossing his arms as he racked his brain for ideas. "We can't pull the same plan a second time, but there must still be _something_ we can do."

"Let's... decide that later," Rubi suggested, hands held up towards his friends as though ready to hold them apart. "For now, we kinda have a building full of dead people here. We should take care of that first, shouldn't we?"

"A good idea," Webmaster agreed. "We can't do it alone, though."

Execk nodded. "We can tell the police we discovered it by chance. Invent a story about a rogue faction or something."

"Sounds good," Rubi replied with a smile.

"We'd better make an effort to identify the bodies and inform their families," Webmaster added, gesturing to his friends to follow him as he returned to the hallway. "Flash said he had files for that in his office, right?"

Execk nodded. "He was very serious about impressing on his employees the danger of working here. Every one should have a last will and testament of some kind in his files."

Rubi paused at the door to watch the pair as they continued to their left, further into the building. "I'll go outside and tell the others what's going on, huh?" he called, heading for the sunlit doorway on his right.

"Sure," Webmaster replied with a wave. "Come find us when you're ready."

 

* * *

 

_Some Weeks Later..._

Bitshrum entered the office one afternoon with a confused look on his face, staring at an envelope in his hands. "Okay, this is weird."

Kindarspirit looked up from her work at the conference table. "What's weird?"

"This," Bits repeated, holding up the blank envelope. "I was handed this by the police chief this morning. They've finished identifying all the bodies."

"Yeah," Kindar replied, frowning in confusion as her hands tapped the multitude of DeBug files littering her makeshift 'desk'. "I know _that_. I'm still organising everything."

Bits scoffed, holding out the envelope for her to take. "I guess you'll know about the 'leftover pictures' then?"

Kindar stared at her friend for a few moments before snatching the envelope from his hands and ripping it open, emptying the five small pieces of paper inside onto the table in front of her. In a matter of moments, she assessed the codes written below the copied photos and was at her pile of folders, leafing through with no heed for the mess she was making as the discarded folders fell all over the table, many of them in danger of spilling their contents indiscriminately.

The door to Webmaster's office opened, and Rubi poked his head out, interrupted from helping draft letters for the loved ones of the deceased. "The hell is going on out here?" he asked.

Bits shrugged. "Apparently there are leftover photos from what we gave the police," he explained.

"What?" came Webmaster's voice, and he pushed past Rubi to exit his office, running straight to Kindar's side as she flicked madly through her files. "Kindar?"

"I spent forever making photocopies of these things!" Kindar replied, not looking up as she began cross-referencing the codes on the five photos to her various papers. "I censored out the unnecessary details like Execk asked, I've read every single will! I even wrote ID codes on every photo, so I could always trace them back if they got separated! I _know_ I didn't miss anyone, _or_ add anything!"

Webmaster and Rubi glanced at each other warily, unsure how to react to Kindar's determination. Bits just rolled his eyes and continued to watch curiously. "But how can there be 'leftover photos'?" Rubi asked. "That doesn't make any sense!"

"Of course it-!" Kindar began to reply, only to stop and shout with an excited cry. "I found one!" She spread out the file in her hands across the desk before her, and Webmaster leaned over her shoulder to watch as she lined up three of the 'spare' photos with their originals.

Webmaster blinked in surprise. "A Kiziti," he said.

Kindar grinned and nodded. "Three photos, three forms!" she chirped. "I guess they didn't find her body!"

"What was her name?" the wengal asked, reaching for the profile form underneath.

"Take a look," Kindar suggested, moving the photos aside to allow her friend to pull the form out. "I'm still struggling on the 'we have a survivor' thing!"

Rubi resisted the urge to jump up and down in excitement. "We have a survivor!?" he repeated excitedly. "For real!?"

"Wait wait!" Bits cried, holding up his arms. "What about the other photos? Who do _they_ belong to?"

"Kizuna," Webmaster muttered to himself with a smile. "Our survivor is called Kizuna."

Bits rolled his eyes again, annoyed he'd been either ignored or simply not heard. "And the other two!?" he shouted.

Kindar looked up with a frown. "No need to yell!" she scolded him, already reaching for her pile of folders again.

"I'll get Execk!" Rubi cried, and he dashed off towards the only closed office door.

 

* * *

 

It had been a lot more crowded in Execk's office since they 'raided' the DeBug Base for anything they could use in the continued fight against the virus. Flash's computer was an old one, and its wires criss-crossed all over the batwing's desk, taking up a large chunk of the very little available space between Execk's existing two monitors. Webmaster had offered to look through the computer himself, wanting Execk to help Kindar with the physical files, but the batwing had insisted on doing the digital side of things himself. It had still taken him this long to finally break through Flash's passwords, though.

Execk had been so focussed on his task, the sudden opening of his door was quite the shock to his system.

"EXECK!" Rubi shouted excitedly, hand still on the door from slamming it open. "We have a survivor!"

The batwing looked up curiously, anger at the interruption disappearing quickly. "We what!?"

"A _survivor_!" Rubi repeated with a big grin, and he dashed back into the main room, leaving the office door wide open.

Rolling his eyes to himself (he always hated it when the others didn't leave his door as they'd found it), Execk pushed himself to his feet and ventured out of his office. The first thing he saw was Kindar poring over a personnel file, Webmaster and Bitshrum on either side as they watched eagerly. Rubi was on the other side of the table, leaning across as he struggled to be included.

"So," Execk said as he slowly walked into the room. "We have a survivor?"

The other four looked up, excited grins all over Kindar and Rubi's faces while Webmaster and Bits looked more calm. " _Two_ survivors!" Bits corrected, excitement in his voice although he was attempting to appear casual. "We just identified the second!"

Execk cast a critical gaze over the clutter of folders on the table, raising an eyebrow. "Hence the mess, I presume."

Kindar shrugged with a guilty smile. "The second one was on the very bottom of the pile," she explained. "His name is Zetto!"

"Zetto and Kizuna," Webmaster filled in. "Our two survivors."

"They're both Kizitis!" Rubi added. "How cool is _that?_ "

Instead of being excited, Execk frowned. "Zetto?" he repeated.

Webmaster nodded. "You know the name?"

"Yes," Execk replied. "I was just reading Flash's personal notes on him." He gestured behind him to his office. "He was Flash's chosen successor."

" _Is!_ " Kindar corrected with a smile. "The police returned his photos to us, 'cuz they didn't have a matching body!"

Execk rolled his eyes. "Is, was, same thing."

"Wait a sec!" Bits said, eyes frowning as attention turned to him. "We never found Flash's sword, and Kindar told me the other day Flash willed it to his successor. Do you think this 'Zetto'...?"

"Took it?" Webmaster filled in. "Maybe."

Rubi shrugged. "He probably knew it was his. He was entitled to take it."

"Agreed," Execk added. "And, as Flash's successor, he would have had access to that locked hallway, and the lab in there. Think he took anything with him?"

The five thought in silence for a few moments. "Let's discuss that later," Webmaster suggested. "For now, let's finish up dealing with the dead. If these two got out of there before we found the base, they can probably handle themselves."


	10. FORG: Netkings' Watch, Part 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long wait. I'll skip the excuses and just post this old thing still sitting around. :)  
> I have a tumblr blog set up if you want to ask me or the main characters questions about them and/or their world. You can find it at http://debugorg.tumblr.com !

**FORGOTTEN SCENE**

**NETKING LABS, MECHCITY**

 

It took a few weeks to organise a watch to be set up on Flashblade's special bank account, which was kept open and funded specifically for the use of the two survivors. Kindar and Rubi threw a party in celebration of the pair's continued existence, which gave the office a much-needed morale boost. It was only by luck Webmaster realised five minutes in that his office phone was ringing.

After slamming off Kindar's music, Webmaster raced into his office, not bothering to close the door behind him, and grabbed his phone off its hook. "Hello?" he asked breathlessly, staring into the distance.

At the door behind him, the other four members of the Founders assembled, anxiously watching their boss standing by his desk, back to them.

"Already? I see," Webmaster said into the phone. "So the one in Lavendera is...? Okay, that's good. And the other one...? Brilliant. Thank you. ... That's fantastic, thank you very much." The wengal placed his phone down and turned to face his friends in the doorway, smiling.

"Well?" Bits asked impatiently.

"What'd they say?" Rubi added.

Webmaster chuckled, arms held wide. "Our little survivors appear to be still alive at least. They've separated though; One's in Lavendera, the other appears to be in Mechcity right now."

Kindar squealed, causing Execk next to her to recoil, clutching his ears. "That's so awesome they're both still okay!"

"Augh! Keep the volume down, would you!?" Execk cried.

Not even noticing Execk's response, Kindar tapped her chin in thought. "But why did they split up?"

"Good question," Rubi replied. "Do they not like each other or something?"

Webmaster shrugged. "There's no way to know, unfortunately."

Bits sighed, shaking his head. "Okay, these guys  _definitely_ need all the help we can get them."

"And what do you suggest we do?" Execk asked, a single eyebrow raised.

"Simple!" Bits cried, pushing past Execk and away from Webmaster's crowded office door. "I'll take a break from work for a bit, officially."

Rubi laughed. "Going on holiday?" he asked, jokingly. "Mind if I join you?"

Bits waved off the robot's answer. "I'll see what I can do with the stuff in that lab of theirs. Maybe they managed to refine that antivirus magic we were working on."

The group quietly thought for a few moments. "That... sounds like a good idea, actually," Webmaster said.

Execk nodded. "Agreed," he added. "And, on that note, since you've put up a watch on those cards of theirs, should we actually confirm it's them? ATMs are usually under security surveillance; I'm sure we can officially request the footage."

"Hey, yeah!" Rubi replied, fists raised in excitement. "And if they ever come back to the base, we could set up some kind of system to let us know, in case they need our help!"

"We could run it off the solar power system Flash set up!" Kindar added with a grin. "It's not like it's being used for anything else right now!"

Bits laughed. "And if they do, I can hopefully leave something there for them to use!"

"Alright, alright!" Webmaster cried, hands raised as he held back a laugh. "That's a lot of good ideas, but we need to be organised if we want to see them succeed."

Execk nodded. "A good point. I'll spend today retrieving the security footage of those ATMs, if you can send me the information on them."

"I'll forward you the e-mail once it gets through," Webmaster agreed.

"Rubi, you wanna help me set up this alert system at the base?" Bits asked.

Rubi shot the mushroom shifter a double thumbs-up. "You bet!"

"I'll help cover for you guys while you're there," Kindar offered.

"You're the best, Kindar!" Rubi cried, and the human giggled in response.

 

* * *

 

**TWO YEARS LATER**

 

_The Debug Organisation is, or was, a terrorist group that plagued TOME for many years after its founding. It's true purpose was never confirmed. Members of the Organisation attacked the three cities seemingly at random, but their main focus was on Mechcity._

 

Webmaster's pen danced across the page, doing its utmost best to keep up with the words arranging themselves in the wengal's mind. He much preferred the feel of the paper against his hands, the sound of the pen scratching on the page, to the feel of typing on a keyboard and the clack-clack of the keys under his fingers. It was a personal preference, and difficult to explain to his disbelieving colleagues.

 

_No member of the group ever stayed in custody, suspected members being released on technicalities or simply disappearing from police cells. Investigations never turned up concrete explanations for how this would occur._

 

A tiny part of Webmaster hated himself for deciding to write an article for his encyclopaedia project about the Organisation he had founded, especially that he was writing it in  _this_ way, but he knew he could not risk writing the truth and letting it escape the safety of their towering office rooms.

 

_Activity from the group seemed to stop very suddenly only two years ago, when their base was finally located to the south of Mechcity, destroyed and littered with the dead._

 

His pen paused, the familiar although much less potent shot of pain in his mind that Flashblade, and almost a hundred others working with him, had died in such a terrible way and not even made a dent on the virus they all sought. A large part of the middle-aged wengal still blamed himself for the entire mess, and he had to force himself to put the pen back to paper, comforting himself with happier thoughts...

 

_However, the Organisation has been confirmed to still exist in a much smaller form, as attacks occasionally continue, at a smaller scale, to this day._

 

... thoughts of how the only two to have survived the attack were still out there, alive and working to fight the virus. There was one who was travelling Tome, commonly using her bankcard in areas near sightings of the virus, which Bits had become the official tracker of since the destruction of the base. The other seemed to have based himself in Lavendera, using his bankcard to (as far as Webmaster could guess) pay for rent and essentials. He liked to imagine the pair met up every time the virus came close to Lavendera, and that the non-traveller spent his days doing research to aid their fight. It was all too obvious it was because he was doing it alone that the pair were still having so much trouble.

He paused in his writing, staring at the paragraph so far but not seeing it. He couldn't help but wonder how their two survivors were doing these days. Had it really been two years? No, it was closer to two and a half. It had been long enough he couldn't remember what the pair looked like or what their names were, despite all the information on them Kindar had somewhere in her office. He could always ask her to look at them again, but the wengal didn't want to bug her for no real reason.

Webmaster glanced up at his calendar, noticing a small mark on today's date. According to the schedule the Lavenderan had been going by, Webmaster was expecting an e-mail later that night about another withdrawal of money, what he was presuming to be rent money. It was quite remarkable how he never missed it, although the wengal supposed he could have some kind of automatic system set up for the needed money every fortnight.

The door suddenly opened, and Webmaster jumped in surprise, turning to see Bitshrum stood in the opening. "Webmaster!" he cried.

"Could you knock next time?" the wengal asked in irritation, turning in his chair to face the shifter. "What is it?"

"Sorry," Bits mumbled, shaking his large head, and he moved closer to his friend, clutching a piece of paper in his hands. "I found a suspicious-looking report from Lavendera, it looks like-!" He paused, catching sight of the half-written article on Webmaster's desk.

The wengal glanced in the direction of Bitshrum's frowning eyes, and placed a hand over the small paragraph of text, blushing in embarrassment.

"Is that about...?" Bits asked.

Webmaster nodded. "The Organisation. I-it's only a first draft, unfinished."

Bits stared at the back of his friend's hand for a long while before sighing and shaking his head. He fixed a stern gaze in Webmaster's direction, holding out the paper in his hands. "I can't say anything for sure, but we have a possible virus-possession case in Lavendera. The potential victim escaped police yesterday afternoon."

"Really?" Webmaster asked, frowning in thought as he took the offered paper, reading it over. "One of our survivors is in Lavendera..."

The shifter thought for a moment. "I hope they have this under control, then," he said. "This wengal that escaped? He had a bunch of friends with him, who're being charged with resisting arrest and assaulting two officers. One or two of them might have been our survivors." He stole another glance at the uncovered article on Webmaster's desk, unnoticed by its author.

Webmaster sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Thank you for passing this on to me," he told his friend. "I'll do some research, see if we can confirm this 'Alpha' really was possessed by the virus or not."

Bits nodded. "Sure. No problem, boss." With that, he turned and left the room.

Turning back to his article, Webmaster again sighed, looking between Bitshrum's typed notes in his hands and the hand-written article on his desk. After a moment of thought, he shook his head and placed the notes to one side, picking up his pen and writing out a sentence he hated himself for even thinking.

 

_The destroyed base is suspected to be the victim of an internal attack by a small handful of more radical Organisation members._

 

Webmaster dropped his pen and buried his face in his hands. "I need a drink."

 

* * *

 

It was with solemn and heavy hearts the five Founders returned to their office after lunch one afternoon and separated to their individual offices. It had been three years to the day since Flashblade's death, and just over six months since they lost all trace of who Webmaster had taken to calling their 'Lavenderan survivor'. Since his last withdrawal was eerily close to the suspicious virus-like attack on the local brawling community (in both time and place), they feared the worst had happened to him and they had failed yet again, but since there was such a strong possibility he'd simply left Lavendera and not used his card since, they'd not done anything about his disappearance just yet.

Their conversations that day had danced around the subject, and the palpable fear of the unknown was slowly getting to Execk. He was the last to leave the impromptu picnic they'd held at Flash's grave, wanting a few moments alone to collect himself before following his friends back to the office, and it was almost scarily silent when he found himself back at his own office door.

_'Figures,'_ the batwing thought to himself. _'Rubi and Kindar would pick today of all days to actually be quiet for once.'_ He entered his room, letting the door close itself behind him, and slowly lowered himself into his chair, tapping the power button on his computer to wake it up. He stretched for a moment or two, then turned to settle himself back down to work...

 

**Movement detected in network "DBUG BASE". View video?**

**OK             CANCEL**

 

... and was greeted by the absolute last thing he ever expected to see.

After a moment of staring and rubbing his eyes in disbelief, Execk's hand shot to his mouse and clicked 'OK', bringing up the live video feed of the six cameras Bits and Rubi had set up the last time they were in the old base. Three of the cameras had been activated by recent motion, and a pair of shifters could be seen in one of them, investigating the file cabinets in Flashblade's old office.

Execk knew he had to alert the others, but was loathe to leave his computer to go collect them. After another moment or two of thought, he brought up their internal chat program and opened a window for himself and his four colleagues of Netking Labs' top floor.

 

12:45:30 **EXE** > Who's online right now?

 

It took less than a second for replies from his friends to come pouring in.

 

12:45:39 **Humble Pie** > I'm here, on the phone tho

12:45:41 **SPORE KING** > wat do u want?

12:45:43 **rubirules** > Here

12:45:43 **~Dreaming~** > i'm here. what is it? :?

 

Execk grinned and quickly typed up his response.

 

12:45:49 **EXE** > Oh good, that's everyone.

12:45:54 **EXE** > Come to my office at earliest convenience.

 

This little 'surprise' was just the pick-me-up they'd been asking for.


End file.
